Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus, system, and method of selecting a relay device, and a control program stored on a recording medium.
Description of the Related Art
Communication systems such as videoconference systems that perform communication or a conference via a communication network such as the Internet or a dedicated line have become popular in recent years due to a demand for reducing costs and time involved in movement of conference participants. When communication is started between communication terminals in such a communication system, content data such as image data and sound data is transmitted or received, to carry out communication between the participants. In a videoconference system serving as a communication system, a relay device for relaying image data and sound data between videoconference terminals serving as communication terminals is provided.
In order to disperse the load on the relay device, there is disclosed a method for causing, when establishing a videoconference session, a selecting device to select a relay device to be used in the session from among a plurality of relay devices (see JP-A-2013-243467). The selecting device manages, on the basis of the bandwidth from each videoconference terminal to each relay device, preferential rating that the videoconference terminal connects to the relay device. That is, the selecting device selects a relay device that serves as a connection destination of the videoconference terminal using the preferential rating. Furthermore, the videoconference system in JP-A-2013-243467 is provided with a plurality of videoconference management systems each capable of managing a videoconference. Accordingly, a videoconference management server that serves as a connection destination of a videoconference terminal can be dispersed, thereby improving the scalability of the videoconference system.
However, in the case where a plurality of control apparatuses that control a session between communication terminals are provided, a relay device that serves as a communication destination of the communication terminal may be selected regardless of the location of the communication terminal.